True Atheist
by katilara
Summary: LegatoxWolfwood drabbles, mostly written for my roommate, who loves the random pairings.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Quick-betaed for me by the beautiful **preraphaelite1**. **marilla82** had voiced some interest in Legato/Wolfwood fic. Needless to say, I couldn't find any that didn't make my head hurt. So here's some that hopefully won't have that effect on others. Set just before Knives has Wolfwood follow Vash. Tentatively complete, but I liked writing them more than I thought I would, there may be more later.

* * *

One was white and one was black.

The sex slave and murderer turned ally and priest; their lives lived in similar yet misaligned paths. They were so much alike it hurt them to look at each other. But they had to admit, they liked the pain. It reminded them that they weren't as dead inside as they had previously thought. They weren't as dead as they had been told they were.

Nicholas sprawled across the steps out front of the bar and smoked, like he did after all of their jobs. His arms and legs stretched away from his body at crooked angles and reached on forever. Legato stood behind him, hands in his pockets, and looked at the destruction they'd caused. He looked everywhere but at Nicholas. Nicholas pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and flicked some of the ash onto the floor boards underneath him. Then he returned it to its starting place and inhaled. The breath was too hard, and Legato could hear Nicholas' ribs shake with the force of the wind.

"This isn't going to be easy," Nicholas said.

"Nothing is easy, Wolfwood." Out of annoyance, Legato caused Nicholas' lips to part so that he dropped the cigarette.

"Mmm…" Nicholas hummed and looked down at the half smoked cigarette smoldering on the ground between his legs. Then he leaned back and rested his head against Legato's thigh. "But everything has a purpose."

Legato snorted. "You believe that bullshit?"

"I am a man of the cloth, after all."

Legato pulled his left hand from his pocket and held it over the top of Nicholas' head. He didn't touch him, but felt comforted by the closeness of him anyway. He eyed the cross Nicholas had propped against the wall when they had finished. It was white cloth and black straps, all hint of its true power hidden. The image of the covered cross always made him feel sentimental. Nicholas insisted that it was the power of God, but Legato knew it was something else. It was the color of the thing. The black was wrapped so tightly around the white that the cloth pulled away, strained against the protection of the straps in the vain hope of one day being able to hold all of that mercy on its own. It just needed a little more time. Legato just needed a little more time.

Legato pulled his hand away again. There was a moan from inside the bar.

"You're getting sloppy," Nicholas said. He pushed himself slowly to his feet and faced Legato, who watched him from behind red flecked blue bangs. Nicholas reached his hand between them and wiped some of the blood off on his nicotine stained fingers. He tried to pull them away, but couldn't. He grinned.

"This may be the last time you ever touch me, and you're taking the blood away?" Legato raised an eyebrow and released Nicholas' hand. "What kind of devil saint are you?"

Nicholas ran his thumb from Legato's ear to his mouth. It left behind it a faint streak of red down the pale cheek. "You have no faith in me, friend."

"On the contrary," Legato said. "You're one of the two things I do have faith in. And from now on, those two things are seemingly opposed. One of them will die. I'm just casting my eye with the stronger of the two."

"Spoken like a true atheist." Nicholas said.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** The first one was my roommate's fault, but now they've grown on me. Silly bastards.

* * *

Nicholas crossed himself and then stood up, brushing the sand from his pant legs.

"You're pathetic, you know that?" Legato was leaning against the bike and shielding his eyes from the sun. Nicholas didn't reply. He just checked his saddle bags and the straps on the cross. Legato took this as a silent cue to keep going. "I mean, you talk to people who aren't there, and you base your whole life on believing in something that doesn't believe in you, if it even exists. This whole faith thing is bullshit."

"You don't believe in a higher power?" Nicholas mounted the bike.

"Don't be an idiot, you know I do. But Knives-sama isn't God, Wolfwood. Knives-sama you can touch, and he can-" Legato's voice became quieter. "He can touch you in return."

Nicholas raised an eyebrow and lit a cigarette. "And you think Knives believes in you?"

Legato bowed his head. "I think that Knives believes in what's good for this planet. He's right, humans are scum. They just take and take and take."

"Does that include you?"

Legato smiled from behind his hair. Nicholas pulled the cigarette from his mouth and tilted his head back. He held the lit end so that it hovered a centimeter from his own Adam's apple. "Are you insinuating that I give nothing in return, Chapel?"

Nicholas smiled as well, and laughed. Legato let Nicholas loose and he turned around on the bike and captured Legato's mouth with his own. Legato's breath caught and his mind went blank. He was used to brutality and rough touches and subservience to a master who asked everything. He never knew quite how to handle Nicholas, especially after he'd been praying. Prayer made him calm and, though still intense, slightly less tightly wound than usual.

Legato pulled away and looked at Nicholas, who just laughed again and turned to finish his cigarette. When he dropped it in the sand Legato climbed onto the bike behind him and wrapped his arms around Nicholas' waist.

"You give a lot in return Legato, you just don't believe yourself to be worthy of what you get in the first place. Faith doesn't work that way, not with a real God, anyway." Nicholas started the bike and Legato's mumble of 'pathetic' was lost under the roar of the engine. He smiled in spite of himself. No matter how insufferable Chapel could be, he always understood when to give and when to take, and maybe that's what he meant by faith after all.


End file.
